Greetings from Alison Wiley here in Portland, Oregon. I'm a writer/doer/thinker who lives happily by putting people, nature and God ahead of accumulating more stuff. Read more →
This morning marks the first anniversary of my mother’s death. If you’re reading this, you’ve suffered losses in your life, too. What I appreciate about loss is that it bands us human beings together. We’re vulnerable. We need each other, and we also need the natural world. These are themes in my upcoming novel, Revelle. [...]
Tags: coille_mor·haiku·loss·Revelle
I had a marguerita last night with my fish tacos at the Hawthorne Fish House. I tossed the drink down fast, in the tiny wedge of time available to me between fighting the traffic home from a meeting in Salem (I won an award — happy surprise!) , and the start of the writing critique [...]
Tags: Bill Gracie·haiku·Holy Grail·hyperactivity·margueritas·stress
Later this month I’ll write about the climate talks in Copenhagen; I hope that world leaders are brave enough to embrace significant change. This weekend, a cold and blustery one here in Portland, I’ve been dancing, writing haiku with Colleen, and continuing to help Mahamudi, a 13 year old from Somalia, learn to read. (Mahamudi [...]
Pretend we were all alive together 300 years ago, or 300,000 years ago. What would we do for fun, in the absence of internet, movies, television, and everything else made possible by cheap fossil fuels? I think we’d do what my friends did with me last night to celebrate my birthday: entertain each other without [...]
Tags: birthdays·Colleen Kaleda·dancing·fun·haiku·Jean Baumann·labor of love·party·risotto·singing·vegetarian
After writing in serious veins lately about beauty and battles, the most important number in the world, and our wrong-headed war in Afghanistan, I”m just breathing today. Enjoying simple pleasures, like a cup of excellent coffee (direct trade gets even better wages to the coffee farmers than fair trade, I understand). Portland Oregon, where I [...]
A high-joy, low-consumption pursuit that my friend Colleen Kaleda, a journalist, and I love to do together is write haiku. Her first poem reflects that she and her husband merrily ousted some pavement from their property last summer. Contact speaks to our shared love of community and sociability. Which reminds me: this Thursday Colleen and [...]
Tags: Colleen Kaleda·fun·haiku
Happy Valentine’s Day! In the spirit of romance and soft-edged things, we have haiku today by my friend Colleen Kaleda, who happens to be a professional journalist. Why are Colleen and I so fond of writing haiku together? Because it’s a process of throwing away frippery and non-essentials (and you know how I feel about [...]
Tags: Colleen Kaleda·culture·fun·Grant Macdonald·haiku·happiness·Honduras·life·love·relationships
by Alison Wiley My blog Diamond-Cut Life is a medley of money-saving advice that reduces carbon emissions at the same time, critical thinking on current events and U.S. culture, and a personal journal of treading as lightly and joyfully on the earth as I can. Friendship, community and the arts are big elements for me [...]
Tags: friendship·haiku
In the past month I’ve been writing energetically (raving?) about the economic crisis and the presidential race. They matter a lot to me. But I think it’s our deep inner lives, the lives of our souls, that guide us into wisdom, joy and what I term the diamond-cut life. A few weeks ago I was [...]
Tags: culture·economics·haiku·happiness·nature·outdoors·photo courtesy of stewf·religion·soul·spirituality
Having noticed unusually high readership of my last post How To Save Money On Gas, I’m going to soon write a sequel with more tips on that topic, including from readers, via comments. But man does not live by gas alone. We need our spirits to be fed, too. Enter poetry. This poem of mine, [...]
Tags: archetype·dogs·fun·green living·haiku·happiness·heart·life·love·lover·Noel Zia Lee·relationships·shopping·spirit
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